1. Field
The following description relates to telecommunications, including design and application of ultra-wideband (UWB) antennas, and more particularly, to a subclass of UWB antennas to be operated in proximity to or in contact with a human body or on a surface of the human body or other biological objects.
2. Description of Related Art
As it is known, tissues of a human body and most other biological objects possess a relatively high dielectric conductivity. Such high dielectric conductivity may cause a relatively high reflection coefficient of a wave falling from a free space and a relatively high attenuation coefficient of the wave transferred inside the tissues.
Under such circumstances an electromagnetic wave in proximity to a surface of a human body undergoes serious attenuation. However, under certain conditions, electromagnetic waves can be distributed around curvilinear objects. For effective transmission and reception of signals, communication devices and specially-designed antennas operating in a radio channel under wireless body area network (WBAN) standards are necessary. Such techniques are widely applied to such fields as medicine, sports, mobile communication, and other areas that have caused acceptance of standards (IEEE 802.15.6, http://standards.ieee.org/findstds/standard/802.15.6-2012.html).
Due to the IEEE 802.15.6 standards being widespread, creating new forms of wireless devices operating in an immediate proximity to a surface of a human body is possible. In general, such wireless devices have an independent power supply and a prominent limitation to power consumption. In such a situation, searching for methods to maximize a limitation to power consumption of each separate block of the devices is desirable.
Such methods to maximize the limitation to power consumption allow transmission and reception of electromagnetic signals in proximity to a surface of a human body, when receiving and transmitting antennas lack a line-of-sight, due to an effect of surface electromagnetic waves. Thus, miniaturization of devices, for example, remote health monitoring systems and peripheral devices in mobile communication systems has a considerable importance.